Fearless Tower wrote:Just out of curiousity, how long was the runway you were landing on and how fast were you when you touched down?
I really am reluctant to attempt this ... because #1- It refelects poorly upon my judgement at the time (judgement results from experience/bad experience teaches judgement), and #2 it involves a now-defunct airport.
It was a small, turf airstrip with a hangar at the south end at the base of a hill... and the runway sloped upward to the north. I had to approach over the hill in a steep/slow/full-flap approach. I recall seeing a man standing on the threshold (I could barely see him over the nose as we made the plummet over-the-hill, clearing the hangar-roof) with his hands out to his sides...palms downward... pumping his hands as if to say "Get it DOWN...Get it DOWN!". I was a 21 year old CFI and was very current/competent with short/soft field landings, and felt things were well in-hand at that point. The grass runway was 1800 feet long with a 100' hill at it's south end (but which allowed approach over/down it's slope to the hangar at the so. end.) The West (right side) was a huge arroyo filled with cedar trees...the East (left side) was upsloped with trees, the North end was 20' cedar trees, and the N/W corner had the 6' tall pile of rocks the size of watermellons at the rwy corner. It was my second landing there... as my friend and I had arrived from Houston earlier to pick up his skinny/tiny little man (110-pounds soaking-wet ) of an uncle...who, as he approached the airplane for the short observation-flight asked if "his wife could also come along?"
'SURE!", I replied, imagining she must be like him. He went back to his car and when he returned it was with the Barnum & Bailey FAT BEARDED WOMAN, Aunt Bertha!
... but I was too timid to revoke my permission in front of this huge whale for fear of hurting my friend and his uncles feelings, not to mention she looked like she could squash me if I pzzzd her off.
The takeoff, short runway, uphill, over the trees, gusty conditions, second takeoff ever made by me in a C-175 was with tree limbs brushing the undersides of the wings and stall warning screaming. I felt like throwing up.
We flew out over some property they wanted to look at (deer lease) and then returned to the brake-failure landing that felt like landing on grease. As my only choices were to destroy the airplane into the arroyo or the trees straight-ahead...or possibly save the aft-end of it by steering it into the rocks...I kicked hard left-rudder and steered toward the pile, and pulled the yoke full-aft to try to minimize the "hit" on the nosegear/prop. We ended up with the tail tiedown ring sitting in the dirt and the airplane's tricycle gear sitting as if it had touched-down against small-hillside of the 6-foot pile of rocks.
Bertha had unknowingly contributed to the braking effort by assisting in burying the tie down ring dragging in the dirt.
Now comes the part where I excersize bad judgement: (little joke, that)
....
After we got it off the rocks and removed the cracked nosewheel fairing...and despite the fact we realized the airplane had absolutely no brake linings, ... I still took off with my friend and flew it back to Houston Hobby airport in order to return it to it's A & P owner (a fellow appropriately named Sam Shadow.)
Knowing there was little, if any, braking action available I landed as slowly as I felt comfortable, seeing as how Rwy 35 had 5,000 feet (back in 1970's) I felt OK about it.... But when we touched down exactly on the numbers about 60 mph.... the dang thing did its "land on grease" acceleration-thing again and we almost rolled thru the crossing rwy 12R at the FAR END
(back then it was known as 13) and I had to take that runway-in-opposite-direction sorta like a high-speed exit... cutting the mixture to bring the airplane to a stop because the brakes simply refused to hold the airplane even against an idling engine once the airplane was in-motion.
I know it sounds like exaggeration, but that's a truthful description of how poor those missing brake-linings performed. Once the airplane was rolling...it simply would not stop without lining on the brake-pads.
Since that experience...I have refused to operate several airplanes with very minor brake issues.... which other pilots have accepted. I simply will NOT fly ANY airplane with even the slightest symptom of brake problems.
Brad Brady wrote:gahorn wrote:Anyway... it caused me to remember way back in my youthful exuberance to rent a C-175 which belonged to an A&P mechanic (which should have been a warning-sign)
HEY! I resemble that statement, and am offended!
I have a brother-in-law who is a former electrician and now an electrical engineer. His house circuits are full of open-wiring and unfinished projects.
I have a friend who is a plumber. His wife cannot get him to repair the plumbing in their house.
We all know a certain retired TWA Airline mechanic who lives on the TX/LA border near a large lake, on an airstrip, who owns about 5 airplanes or portions thereof.... none in which would I put any member of my family (although I wouldn't mind if an ex-wife rode in them....if he could get the congealed auto-gas out of them and get them started.)
His better-half has an airplane that is airworthy last time I saw it, but I don't think she lets him work on it.
I know a preacher's kid who has sampled every type of sin known to God-or-man.
I'm the son of a math-teacher and count on my fingers.
The point I was trying to make was that sometimes "familiarity breeds contempt" for aircraft mechanics. I've known many who would ground another person's airplane because it didn't have installed genuine General Electric BRAND landing lamps... but whose own airplanes are not worthy of being on an airport much less a hangar and had Wagner Tung-Sols from the tractor store that were wired with automotive wiring and vinyl tape (and electrically-supplied with a lawn-tractor battery, clamped to worn-out battery cables with a set of Vise-Grips.)
Not all mechanics are that way. I know Jim McIntosh has only serviced his tires with genuine nitrogen. (The nitrogen service cart belongs to Air Canada.)
... offered a Boeing video showing the 747-8 performing certification rejected takeoff/braking tests with brakes deliberately worn beyond limits. 
